Italy’s seventh FREMM frigate takes to sea

The Italian Navy’s seventh FREMM frigate Federico Martinengo took to the sea for the first time in the Gulf of La Spezia earlier this month.

During the first sea going several systems installed onboard have been set up and tested successfully. Some of them are newly developed equipment such as the new solid state Surface Search Radar and the new Conformal Array IFF.

The frigate’s first voyage came less than five months after it was launched at the Riva Trigoso shipyard in Genoa.

While being the seventh frigate Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri has built for the Italian Navy, it is the third general purpose variant – the other four are equipped for anti-submarine warfare.

According to OCCAR (Organisation Conjointe de Cooperation sur l’Armement, the international organization for cooperation on arms) under which Italy and France build the frigates, Federico Martinengo is scheduled to be delivered to the navy by April 2018.

Italy will build ten ships in the Carlo Bergamini-class, four anti-submarine variants and six general-purpose variants, while France is yet to make a definite decision on the number of frigates. France initially intended to build 17 FREMM frigates but later cut the number to 11. In 2015, the country announced it would cut the number of FREMMs to 8 in order to be able to budget the new FTI Mid-Size frigates from 2023.